The Third Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”) is an international association of telecommunications network operators and manufacturers hosted by the International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”) to develop and evolve standards for mobile communications systems. As wireless communication systems such as cellular telephone, satellite, and microwave communication systems become widely deployed and continue to attract a growing number of users, there is a pressing need to accommodate a large and variable number of communication devices that transmit an increasing quantity of data within a fixed spectral allocation and limited transmit power. The increased quantity of data is a consequence of wireless communication devices transmitting video information and surfing the Internet, as well as performing ordinary voice communication. The aforementioned services are provided while accommodating substantially simultaneous operation of a large number of wireless communication devices.
To address these ongoing needs, a current topic of general interest in 3GPP is the use of an enhanced dedicated channel (“E-DCH”) in a universal mobile telecommunication system (“UMTS”). The enhanced dedicated channel is a third generation (“3G”) transport uplink channel used in high-speed uplink packet access (“HSUPA”) to improve capacity and data throughput and to reduce delays in dedicated uplink channels. The specifications for high-speed uplink packet access are included in 3GPP Technical Specification (“TS”) 25.319 V8.10.0, entitled “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Enhanced Uplink; Overall Description; Stage 2,” dated June 2010 and 3GPP TS 25.321 V8.10.0, entitled “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification,” dated June 2010, which are incorporated herein by reference.
The high-speed uplink packet access uses an uplink E-DCH that employs a shorter transmission time interval (“TTI”) that enables faster link adaptation and hybrid automatic repeat requests (“HARQs”) with incremental redundancy, which makes retransmissions more effective. The high-speed uplink packet access uses a packet scheduler, but it operates on a request-grant principle whereby wireless communication devices such as user equipment request permission to send data, and the packet scheduler decides when and how many user equipment will be allowed to send the data. A request for transmission can contain information about the state of a transmission buffer and a queue at the user equipment and its available power margin.
During re-acquisition of a common E-DCH resource (e.g., as defined in 3GPP TS 25.321, V8.10.0) from the communication system or network, the initial attempt by the user equipment to acquire the common E-DCH resource may fail. Present 3GPP technical specifications do not describe a subsequent action after a failure to acquire a common E-DCH resource. Such failure could lead to a deadlock situation within the user equipment until an initiation of another common E-DCH resource associated with the transmission of new data.
One of the more problematic issues is how to enable user equipment to make another attempt to acquire a common E-DCH resource, especially when a first attempt to acquire the common E-DCH resource fails. In view of the growing deployment of communication systems such as cellular communication systems and this unresolved issue, it would be beneficial to employ an apparatus, method and system that enable the user equipment to make another attempt to acquire a common E-DCH resource that avoids the deficiencies of current communication systems.